A3. Sustainability Timeline

sustainability timeline 1986 Chernobyl. 1720 Start of the Industrial Revolution. 1982 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus publishes the controversial An Essay on the Principle of Population, predicting limits to growth, and the impossibility of the growth utopia. 1845 Friedrich Engels publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England, highlighting poor sanitation and pollution from industrial revolution. 1894 John Muir’s The Mountains of California published. Muir is called the “father of Ecology”, and critical in establishing the 1948 Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac published, containing ‘A Land Ethic’. A seminal book that still holds its ground today. 1962 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published, launching the green movement. 1964 “Green Revolution” in agriculture. 1965 Effects of leaded gasoline become public. 1969 Cuyahoga River (US) catches fire. Rhine river contamination disaster by BASF. 1970 1971 Greenpeace founded in Vancouver. 1973 1972 Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth published. The centerpiece of the sustainability movement. 1974 First signs of Ozone layer damage. 1979 3 Mile Island. 1984 Bhopal chemical leak, India. 1987 Burndtland report Our Common Future published, taking over from Limits to Growth. 2005 Kyoto protocol comes into effect. Hurricane Katrina. 1985 Ozone hole discovered. 1988 (IPCC) founded. 1989 Exxon Valdes oil spill. 2009 15 in Copenhagen. 1997 Kyoto protocol signed. 2012 (IPBES). 2016 (except for USA). 2019 1 million species at risk. 2012 Kyoto protocol expires.